Yr Wyddfa: up the Pyg, down the Miners', and a mug of tea in Llanberis

Nant Peris, Pen-y-Pass, Llanberis

1. 6:50 am1

   Nant Peris park-and-ride and the Sherpa bus up to Pen-y-PassNant Peris

   Pen-y-Pass has about a hundred spaces, it is pre-book only, and the slots go weeks ahead in summer — driving up there on spec means driving back down again. Everyone local uses Nant Peris instead: cheap all-day parking at the bottom of the pass and the Sherpa'r Wyddfa S1 up the hill for a couple of pounds. Verified 2026-09-06: the high-season Sherpa'r Wyddfa timetable runs through to Sunday 1 November 2026, the first S1 leaves the Nant Peris Park & Ride for Pen-y-Pass at 07:15, and the last bus back down from Pen-y-Pass is 19:30. S1, S2 and S5 between them give a bus every 15 minutes at weekends and in school holidays, every 30 minutes otherwise. The Park & Ride itself cannot be pre-booked — it is Pen-y-Pass that is pre-book only. This window has been set to 06:50–07:25 to match that 07:15 departure. Verges on the A4086 are double-yellowed and actively ticketed.

2. 7:30 am2

   Up the Pyg TrackPen-y-Pass

   Three and a half miles and about 720m of ascent — the shortest way up because Pen-y-Pass already sits at 359m. Leaving at 07:30 buys you two hours before the path turns into a queue at the zigzags. Crib Goch branches left near the start and is not an alternative route: it is a grade one scramble along a knife edge with three hundred metres of air either side, and it accounts for a large share of the mountain rescue call-outs in Eryri. Read the Met Office mountain forecast, not the town forecast — the summit is in cloud roughly two days in three and it can be fifteen degrees colder up there with winds three times the valley speed. Hence a hold: if the forecast is wrong, the Miners' Track to Glaslyn and back is a fine day on its own.

3. 11 am3

   The summit and Hafod EryriLlanberis

   1,085m, the highest point in Wales, and there is a cafe in it — but Hafod Eryri only opens when the Snowdon Mountain Railway is running, roughly late March to the end of October and not at all if the trains are stopping short at Clogwyn in high wind. Outside that it is a locked stone building and a summit cairn, so carry lunch regardless. Queue for the trig point on one side and take the view from the other; almost nobody walks the two minutes to the quiet end of the platform.

   20 min walk · 1.5 km
4. 11:45 am4

   Down the Miners' Track past Glaslyn and Llyn LlydawPen-y-Pass

   Up one and down the other makes a proper loop back to the same bus stop, which is the reason to do it this way round rather than out and back. The Miners' drops steeply for the first twenty minutes to Glaslyn and then flattens into an old copper-mine track that is kind to tired knees for the last two miles. The causeway across Llyn Llydaw is the photograph everyone else took from above without knowing they could stand on it. The ruined barracks by Glaslyn are worth five minutes.

   3 min walk · 0 m
5. 2:45 pm5

   The S1 back down the passPen-y-Pass

   The Sherpa runs on through to Llanberis, so you can stay on past your car, spend the afternoon in the town and pick the bus back up to Nant Peris in the evening. Buses fill from the Pen-y-Pass end in the afternoon and standing is not allowed on the mountain road — if two go past full, walking down the old road to Nant Peris takes about fifty minutes and is pleasant.

   14 min by train or taxi · 8.4 km
6. 3:30 pm6

   Pete's EatsLlanberis

   The climbers' cafe at the centre of British mountaineering for fifty years — bright walls, a wall of route guides and logbooks you are meant to read, and mugs of tea that hold a pint because that is what people coming off a hill want. Enormous portions and cheap. Verified 2026-09-06: Pete's Eats shut in September 2022 and did not reopen until November 2025, under new ownership and after a long refurbishment — so anything written between those dates calling it gone is stale, and anything describing the old room may no longer match. Published hours disagree between listings, so check the day you are going rather than assuming it is open late, and do not count on the old cash-preferred habit either way. Upstairs has the weather forecasts pinned up, which is how everyone here decides tomorrow.

   5 min walk · 400 m
7. 5 pm7

   Dolbadarn Castle and the lake path — the Slate Museum is shutLlanberis

   IMPOSSIBLE AS ORIGINALLY WRITTEN — verified 2026-09-06: the National Slate Museum has been closed since November 2024 for a redevelopment now costed at about £25m, construction only started on site in November 2025, and the reopening has slipped from 2026 to 2027. There is nothing to walk into: no slate-splitting demonstration, no workshops, no cafe, no free entry, because there is no open museum. Amgueddfa Cymru is running the collection as 'Museum on the Move' out of partner venues across the slate World Heritage Site while the work goes on, so check where it is showing if the slate story is why you came. What is still here, still free and still open is Dolbadarn Castle — a single Welsh round tower from the 1200s on the knoll above Llyn Padarn, ten minutes on foot from the village — and the path round the lake below it, which is the better hour anyway with a day on the mountain behind you.

   15 min walk · 1.1 km
8. 7:30 pm8

   Pizza and a pint at Gallt y GlynLlanberis

   A bunkhouse pub at the Caernarfon end of the village that has fed walkers pizza and local beer for years — no ceremony, no booking, and the room is entirely people who were on a mountain today. The Heights in the middle of the village is the busier alternative with live music some nights. Kitchens here stop early; anything after 21:00 in Llanberis is a bag of crisps.